To build the new capital city (IKN) that is in harmony with natural sustainability through the concept of a Sustainable Forest City, the Indonesian Capital Authority (OIKN) has invited several NGOs to work together, one of which is the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation or BOSF.
BOSF is an Indonesian non-governmental organisation founded by Dr Willie Smits in 1991. It is dedicated to conserving the endangered Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and its habitat by involving the local community. The BOS Foundation manages the orangutan rescue, rehabilitation, and reintroduction program in East and Central Kalimantan.
BOSF manages two rehabilitation centres, Samboja Lestari in East Kalimantan and Nyaru Menteng in Central Kalimantan. The Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Center was founded in 1999 by Lone Droscher Nielsen (now retired). Since its humble beginnings, the centre has grown into the largest orangutan conservation facility in the world. Nyaru Menteng is currently home to around 450 orphaned and displaced orangutans.
A lifetime of early learning and natural growth is lost when an orangutan infant separates from their mother. Several of these infants had been kept as pets, and only a select handful were fortunate enough to survive the trauma. Once an orangutan is freed from captivity and sent to an orangutan care facility, the baby orangutan starts its rehabilitation. When orphaned orangutans are mature enough to be released back into the wild, rehabilitation is done to teach them the survival skills they will require. The first six or seven years of an orangutan’s life are spent with its mother in the wild. This loss must be made up for during the recovery procedure.
One of BOSF’s efforts to protect and prevent these baby orangutans from extinction is to carry out an adoption program. Unlike the adoption of pets in general, this orangutan adoption program can only be done virtually. There are several baby orangutans at the BOSF rehabilitation centre that can be adopted; one of them is Bumi.
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On the 18th of June 2016, the BOSF team in Nyaru Menteng took in a young boy orangutan that had been rescued from the hamlet of Tumbang Koling by the Central Kalimantan BKSDA and the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP). Bumi could not even lift his eyelids; he was that weak. It’s said that he and his mother were forcefully split apart soon after his birth. Although BOSF is aware that they will never be able to replace his mother fully, they pledge to do all in their power to restore his health and support his development into an independent young orangutan.
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